


Post Traumatic Strider Disorder

by hummingbirdbandit



Series: Stone's Throw Away From A Glass House [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coping, Earth C (Homestuck), Established Relationship, Feelings, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Strider Feels, domestic Karkat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 12:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14355381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hummingbirdbandit/pseuds/hummingbirdbandit
Summary: His sword was in his hand.  When had he drawn his sword?  Why?  He dropped it like it burned him.  No one moved.  No one spoke.





	Post Traumatic Strider Disorder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Java_bean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Java_bean/gifts).



> A piece for my biggest DaveKat headcanon - the two of them struggling to deal with the fallout of the trauma they suffered during the game session. Side-order of Karkat being a domestic busybody when he gets nervous. Enjoy.

Dave was never good at talking about his problems. Through all the self-deprecating jokes where he was the punchline, he made absolutely certain that he never addressed the root of the joke in any serious way. Couldn’t let anyone think that he had lost his cool. Unfortunately, that kind of composure only lasts so long. Dave motherfucking Strider, Literal Time God, had finally cracked.

They were all staring at him in shock. He blinked and stared back, confused. It was just a picnic, up on Dirk and Jake’s hidden island. The whole dysfunctional family, getting together for some immortal fun, cliff-diving and rock-climbing until they got hungry and sat to eat. He had made a joke, and Dirk punched him in the shoulder-

Why was he staring at him like that? Dirk’s face was composed, as usual, impassive behind his shades. It was his body language that gave him away - he had his hands up like he was ready to fight, like he was… defending himself? The terror Dirk was holding in his spine flashed a white-hot memory through Dave. Jack’s arms around Dirk. Their eyes locking. Him rushing forward, sword in hand.

His sword was in his hand. When had he drawn his sword? Why? He dropped it like it burned him. No one moved. No one spoke.

Karkat stepped gently between him and Dirk, holding up his hands soothingly and reaching out for him. “Dave?” His voice was familiar. Soothing. Dave looked into his eyes. They were changing, morphing slowly from yellow to red as he neared his tenth sweep. Dave caught himself thinking for the thousandth time about how beautiful they were. They were full of concern, and fear.

Dave straightened up, breaking the tense pose he didn’t realize he was holding. He looked around at everyone. Every eye was on him, all equally shocked. Even Rose couldn’t hide the surprise. Dave smoothed out his expression - what was his face even doing, anyway? - and dropped what he hoped was a calm smile. “Yeah, KK? What’s up? Can’t a guy initiate a sparring match with his bro without all this intense staredown? Jeez, didn’t realize that English was the only one allowed to lay a hand on him now. I’ll keep that in mind.” He could feel his brain reeling. He was missing seconds, but they were clearly important ones. This was happening more often, lately.

His friends broke his gaze to look at each other. None of them spoke, but an entire novel could have been written about the look Rose shared with Kanaya. Karkat took another step forward, still wary, like he was approaching a wild hornbeast. He placed a hand on Dave’s shoulder and Dave flinched away, his pulse kicking up into his throat again. Karkat held up his hands placatingly and reached for Dave’s hand instead, locking their fingers together. Dave relaxed.

“Dave, why don’t we go home?” Karkat said, his voice steady. Dave laughed hollowly.

“Why? This feast hasn’t even started, we don’t gotta leave now just cuz I made some huge faux pas and ruined the joke.” Karkat just stared at him. He nodded, swallowing. “Yeah. Okay. Sure. Let’s go home.” He looked around Karkat and glanced at Dirk, who had either relaxed or regained his composure and was having a quiet conversation with Jake. “Sorry.”

Dirk nodded, but didn’t speak. Dave gave a cursory goodbye to his friends and caught Karkat whispering with Rose, but didn’t ask. The two of them made the trek back to Dirk and Jake’s house on foot, stepped into the transportalizer, and flashed back home.

He left the sword behind.

* * *

 

They didn’t talk about it. Obviously. Clearly, they wouldn’t talk about the giant trunkbeast in the room. That was what healthy, happy people did, and Dave Strider was neither of those things. Karkat didn’t ask. He knew that Dave would talk when he was ready to talk, so he pointedly avoided bringing up what had happened and went about their days normally.

Dave had been struggling to sleep for months now, but Karkat had chalked it up to adjusting to a nocturnal schedule (the sun on Earth C wasn’t deadly like the Alternian sun, but it made Karkat uneasy just the same). His reaction at the picnic put the events of the last month into focus, and Karkat knew something was very wrong. He also knew that trying to force Dave to talk to him would end with him forcing whatever was happening even further down into himself, and that would be bad for everyone. So Karkat waited.

It only took two weeks before it happened again. Dave was helping Karkat make dinner. Karkat raised the knife to chop the head off of a rather large beetle that he was cleaning when Dave flinched visibly, taking a few steps back and fumbling at the counter to stabilize himself. Karkat set down the knife gently and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Dave had turned heel and left the room in a flash.

Karkat stood alone in the kitchen for a moment, trying to decide whether or not to follow. He sighed and wiped the beetle blood off of his hands, heading towards the bedroom. The asshole would have to talk eventually. Might as well get it over with.

“Dave,” Karkat started, stepping into the bedroom. He froze at the sight. Dave was sitting on the bed, shaking violently, and crying. His shades had slipped down his nose, and were dangling loosely on his face, exposing his eyes and catching tears on the lenses. He was silent, and didn’t react to Karkat’s entrance, as though he hadn’t heard him.

Karkat was at a loss. He knew Dave’s mantra - Striders don’t cry. This wasn’t the first time he had seen Dave break that all-important rule, but he still didn’t know how to interact with him during these episodes. And “these episodes” had never included this level of fear. He stepped closer to Dave.

“Dave, are you okay?” Dave’s head shot up, eyes wild, and softened when he saw Karkat. He pulled in a deep breath and plucked off his shades, wiping his eyes and replacing them. He quickly straightened, trying to look put-together - and dissolved back into tears. Karkat crossed the room and sat down beside him. “Can I touch you?”

Dave collapsed into his arms, body shaking as he sobbed. Karkat felt his bloodpusher clench tight at the familiar contact and pushed away the stupid flushed feelings to focus on figuring out what exactly was wrong with Dave. He ran his hands through Dave’s ridiculously soft, white hair and shoosh-ed him quietly.

Moments passed in this embrace before Dave’s shaking stilled. He pressed harder against Karkat, who continued his hair-stroking. Dave spoke, his voice muffled against Karkat’s sweater.

“I think something might be broken in my head, dude.” Karkat couldn’t help himself - he laughed. Dave pulled up and frowned at him, and he choked the laughter back down. It was absurd, how casual that statement had been, but he couldn’t laugh at Dave now, now that he was finally speaking.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Go ahead,” Karkat said, gesturing. Dave’s eyebrows tented together and he drew in a breath, looking away at the carpet. The silence stretched.

“It’s the nightmares,” he said, so quiet that Karkat almost didn’t hear him. The words started to tumble out. “They used to just be when I slept, like normal fucking nightmares - Jack coming to get us and the batterwitch killing John and Calliope’s crazy fuck of a brother and that stupid fucking puppet. But then we were here and we won and the dreams started to chill out and I thought everything was okay but then they started again and they were different this time, Kar.” He let out a long, shaky breath. “It wasn’t Jack anymore or any of the big bads that we had been fighting in the Furthest Ring. It was…” his voice cracked. “It was Bro.”

Karkat swallowed. He knew some of Dave’s history with his brother, but they had never really spoken directly about it – rather, they had tiptoed around the issue for almost two sweeps. Karkat expected Dave to stop there, but he kept talking, the words tumbling out in typical Strider fashion.

“But it wasn’t just Bro, Kar, it was Dirk. And not Dirk. He looked like Dirk but the things he was doing… And at the picnic, the nightmares weren’t nightmares anymore. Like some weird shift in the depths of my fucked-up brain just decided that I needed to deal with the monsters in the daytime too. So when he went to nudge my shoulder, I panicked. I thought I was gonna have to fight him off all over again in some battle to the death while my friends watched me get my ass handed to me on a silver platter of shame and shit. Like some absurd action flick or something. And then he looked at me and I saw the fear in him and I remembered what I did to him back during the fight with Jack and I-” Dave choked on his words and began to shake again.

Karkat was floored. His chest ached. He sat in dumbfounded silence, wrestling with the desire to go beat the shit out of Dirk and the knowledge that he wasn’t responsible for Dave’s current state. He pulled Dave against him and sighed.

“Have you talked to Dirk about any of this?” Dave went tense.

“Are you crazy? No, I haven’t talked to Dirk! What would I say? Sorry that you remind me of the asshole who stalked me in my sleep for thirteen fucking years? Can you be less like you so I can stop waking up in a cold sweat every night after we hang out for some one-on-one bro time? Sorry I tried to fucking kill you like some keyed up veteran on the Fourth of July? Just gimme some time and maybe eventually looking at you won’t make me see that look on your decapitated face every time I close my eyes?”

Karkat closed his eyes. He had heard from Terezi what had happened up on the roof during the fight with Jack, but this was the first time that Dave had ever addressed it out loud. He let out a shuddering breath.

“Look, I know I’m the last person to give advice about opening up to people, but I really think you should talk to Dirk about all this. He won’t blame you for being afraid and I know for a fact that he wants to be a part of your life because if I had a family I would want them to be a part of mine. Fuck, that’s not what I meant, you are my family, you and Kanaya and the Lalondes and even John and-”

The doorbell rang. Dave flinched in his arms and Karkat looked up at the door to the bedroom. “We can ignore that.” Dave shook his head and released Karkat slowly, like it took significant control to do so.

“It’s probably Jane bringing some food over to make sure we don’t starve. She’s trying some new Alternian fusion food apparently. Rose tells me that it makes bugs damn-near palatable.” Dave’s voice still shook, but he had regained some of his typical bravado. He took off his shades, cleaned them, and returned them to his face, emotions carefully hidden. “Go ahead and get it. I’m gonna… make myself presentable.”

Karkat nodded. He left Dave alone in the bedroom and crossed through the house to the front door. If it was Jane, he was surprised she hadn’t rung again, or texted either of them before heading over. It was unusual. He opened the door, and let out a string of curses in Alternian, too surprised for English.

Dirk Strider stood in the doorway. His usually spiked hair was flat and soft-looking, and he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt that was a size too big and looked like it came out of Jake’s closet. Karkat could see his trademark shades peeking out of his pocket, and without them his face was startled and open. Karkat could see the resemblance in their hair and face shape, now that the glasses were gone. He looked nervous - nowhere to hide the fact that his eyes were darting around like a cornered animal. Karkat realized he was gaping at Dirk and coughed.

“Dirk. Hey. How can I… you look…” Dirk shrugged and slid his hands into his pockets, his face guarded and eyes wild.

“Yeah. I decided to kind of… change my look. A bit. Thought it might… help.” His voice gave on the last word and he cleared his throat. “Is he home?”

Karkat floundered and nodded. “He is, but he-”

“Yo, Karkles, you gonna let Janey in or leave her out in the yard til the food gets cold?” Dave called out, stepping into the kitchen. He glanced at the door and took a step back, his face racing through emotions like a fucked up flip book of fear. It finally settled on confusion. “Dirk?”

Dirk’s eyebrows furrowed. He nodded. Karkat could see his throat move as he swallowed. “Hey, bro. Can we talk?”

Karkat looked between the Striders, watching the scene unfold and feeling like he had lost all control of reality. He gestured into the house, inviting Dirk in. “Yeah, you guys should… I was just making dinner so if you guys wanna… I can just…” Dave tore his gaze away and smiled a tense smile at Karkat.

“It’s cool KK. Dirk and I can finish dinner. Why don’t you go relax a bit? Invite Jake, too, maybe, and we can all eat together.”

Karkat knew Dave well enough to take a hint. He nodded, gave Dave a short kiss, glanced once more at Dirk over his shoulder, and extricated himself from the situation. He made his way back to the bedroom. He took a seat on the bed and let out a heavy sigh before pulling out his phone and shooting Jake a text. After a moment he could hear the boys talking from the other room and tried his best to tune them out. He would hear all about it later, he was sure.

* * *

 

Dirk fell into place beside Dave in the kitchen, tearing and washing the now-slightly-wilted vegetables for the salad Karkat had been planning. He felt naked without his shades and his fingers itched to return them to his face but he refused to give in to his baser instincts when so much was on the line. He didn’t dare speak unless Dave initiated the conversation so they worked in silence. Dirk was bad with silence. The silence stretched him thin, made him reach out to the splinters of himself riddled throughout eternity and try to connect. He hated the sensation so he tried to focus on the task at hand and fill the silence with creation, even if the creation was just the beginning of a shitty wilted salad.

Dave set down his knife and ran the butchered beetle pieces under the tap. He placed them into a casserole dish next to a breaded chicken breast and reached up into the cabinet for a bottle of Alternian spice mix. Dirk watched him move out of the corner of his eye. He could read the tension in him, but it was less than it usually was. He felt a brief surge of triumph - Roxy had been right. It was helping.

Dave put the dish into the over and wiped his hands on the towel. He made no move to help Dirk with the veggies. He walked lazily to the kitchen table and sat. He spoke.

“You changed your hair.”

Dirk immediately reached up and ran his hands through his unstyled locks. He cursed, blank-faced, and washed his hands yet again so he wouldn’t get hair in the food. He nodded.

“Yeah. Kanaya is gonna trim it later so I thought it was polite to make sure she didn’t have to spend an hour washing all the gunk out of it. Properly done my hard has been called sharp enough to cut diamonds and I didn’t fancy her reaching up to cut it and getting blood all over my clothes when she inevitably pricks a finger like some Disney princess with a curse,” Dirk lied. Shit, now he was gonna have to ask Kanaya for a haircut to keep up appearances. Dave made a noise that Dirk couldn’t parse with his back to him.

“What did you want to talk about?” Dave asked. Dirk’s hands faltered on the head of lettuce he was tearing apart with his hands.

“I… uh… wanted to apologize,” Dirk said.

“Dude, you don’t need to-”

“Please, Dave. Let me… fuck, let me get this out.” Dave fell silent. Dirk felt his fight-or-flight senses kicking into overdrive and chewed on them, letting the nervous energy fuel his words. “I want to apologize for what happened back there. On the roof, with Jack. I let my guard down, and I made you pay for it, and that was fucked up and wrong and I would do anything to take it back so you wouldn’t ever have had to do what you did. I know you have nightmares. I know I’m in them. I know because I’m there. Every time. I feel it. The splinters.” The lettuce in his hands was a mess, crushed to pulp and scattered across the counter like so many pieces of a whole. “I can’t… control them, Dave. But I’m there, along for the ride. I know how little you sleep because I’m along for the ride and it’s scary and I’m so sorry that some part of me did this to you.” He didn’t turn around. Dirk hunched his shoulders over the counter and started to scoop the destroyed lettuce into a bowl.

“I was relieved,” Dave muttered. Dirk’s heart pounded hard in his chest, heavy and painful. He knew. He had lived the nightmares. “When Jack killed Bro. I found him there with that stupid sword in his chest, and I knew that there was something wrong with me because there wasn’t any grief. I was relieved.

“I saw John and Rose in shambles when they found their parents and I tried to comfort them but I didn’t know how because instead of sharing their pain I just wanted to go skipping through a field of kitten corpses or some other morbid shit because he was gone and he couldn’t fucking haunt me anymore. And then you showed up and you looked just like him. You walked like him. You talked like him. And I hated myself even more because I was angry that you were there. I wanted you dead like he was because you being alive was just a constant reminder of what he did. But then we talked and I saw the parts of you that weren’t him and was able to see you as your own person instead of some kid version of that asshole and then I had to kill you. And some small fucked part of me was still excited to get to do it.” Dirk could hear Dave sniff behind him and he tensed, making sure to keep his face forward. Striders didn’t cry, and he wasn’t about to let Dave know he heard him breaking that all-important rule.

“So now I’m lost in my own fuckery, Dirk, cuz I dunno how to fix this. If Earth weren’t only a couple wipes old and therapists were a thing I’d likely be sitting in with a shrink every day and listening to them ask me how I feel about that until I find nirvana or something but since the only other option is Rose I feel like sitting out the psycho-analyzing bullshit is probably the smart way to go on this.”

“You said I look like him.”

“What?”

Dirk placed the bowl of lettuce in the sink. “On the roof. You said I look like him.” Dirk turned towards Dave and let the mask on his face drop slightly. “Do I still?”  
Dave’s eyes raked over his body like someone looking for flaws in an old painting and Dirk had to grab hard at his own arms to keep from returning the glasses to his face and turning inward on himself. Dave hummed thoughtfully and grinned a little.

“Yeah, you do.” Dirk’s heart dropped and he felt his face clam back up into a stoic wall. “But you also look like you,” Dave continued. “You’ve got scars where he didn’t. And I never saw his eyes in thirteen years. You aren’t the same person. It’s just gonna take some time for me to convince my stubborn brain of that. That motherfucker is an obstinate little shit.”

Dirk grinned sheepishly, intentionally allowing the emotion to spread across his face. He had picked it up from Jake during his time on LOMAX, and had practiced in the mirror before he ever arrived. “Cool. Are we… okay?” Dirk kicked himself. He really needed to strike that word from his vocabulary.

“Yeah, bro. We’re okay. Sorry I freaked out on you at the picnic.” Dirk shrugged.

“No big deal. No one got hurt. Glad you’re okay.”

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Dave started to stand and open it but before he could Jake English threw it open, exclaiming like a 1920s soap star. Dirk gave him a casual hug, he shook hands with Dave and even gave Karkat an affectionate head-rub when the troll rushed in to fetch the door. Karkat began one of his usual monologues, scowling and fussing and shoving Dirk away from the food to try to salvage the ruined lettuce. As he took a seat and exchanged banter, teaming up on Jake with Dave’s help and watching the man’s facade crumble, Dirk felt a pang of relief. It wasn’t perfect, but they were going to get through this. Jake squeezed his hand under the table and flashed him a smile that sent heat straight through him. This was going to work. They could be a family somehow.

He had never wanted anything more.


End file.
